Waimea United Church of Christ

Luke 11:24-36“Need for Repentance”

Today is
the day we celebrate the coming down of the Holy Spirit as Jesus had promised.
Jesus said that he would send us a helper in the spirit. John 14:16, “And, I
will ask the father, and he will give you a helper, to be with you forever.”
Fifty days after the crucifixion of Jesus at Passover when people were gathered
in Jerusalem for the festival of Pentecost, that Spirit came down.

We can read
about the ecstatic experience people had when the Holy Spirit came down and
rested upon them. All of this is reported by Luke, again, in Acts 2. Thousands
were filled with the Spirit and came to accept Jesus as savior. This is still a
wonder today. The Holy Spirit is still active today and has touched our lives
here as well.

In our
scripture that was read from the pulpit this morning, we see that Jesus was
busy with other kinds of spirits, which he calls “unclean” spirits. So, we have
the Holy Spirit, that is the incredible essence of the Father and Jesus Christ,
and we have these other kinds of spirits that are “unclean.” Jesus tells us
another way to think aboutthese kinds
of spirits is in terms of light and dark. You see at the end of our scripture
Jesus talks about the light that is our godliness being inside of us and
pushing out the dark. So, I have a few questions to ask all of you:

“What would
you name the horse that an unclean spirit rides?” A night-mare.

“Which
unclean spirit lives at city hall?” The night-mayor.

“What does
the unclean spirit eat on his burger?” Night-mayo

It is fun to joke about unclean spirits, but someone who has
one is indeed living in a nightmare. The light of Christ is being blocked by
darkness. That unclean spirit has to be cast out.

Jesus warns
us that if we cast out that unclean spirit, we might create a bigger problem as
that spirit might come back and bring other spirits along. I know that sounds a
little strange, but I have seen it happen. I have seen a man, for instance, who
had a drinking problem beat that unclean spirit only to recede back to drinking
and doing drugs. What Jesus reports is quite true about our human condition. We
think we have got something beat, butthen we find ourselves worse off then before as we slide back into old behaviors—and
then just keep sliding.

The answer
to this conundrum is to never leave your house completely empty so that an
unclean spirit can take over, or even invite the buddies along. So, fill your
life with the Holy Spirit so that the other unclean spirits will never gain a
foothold on your life!

While Jesus
is talking, a woman interrupts him, saying, “Blesses is the womb that bore you.
. . . .!” No argument. Mary was blessed. It is interesting to note then already
very early in the church the veneration of Mary begins. How does Mary feel
about it? How did Jesus about it when it started in his own lifetime? Remember,
Luke had spoken with Mary after the death and resurrection of Jesus. That is
how Luke has all the back-story on the birth of Jesus that the other gospel
writers seemed to have missed. Jesus responds saying “Blessed are those rather
who hear the Word of God and obey it!” Seems as if Jesus was not too keen on
the “Mary worship” thing that was starting in the church.

This topic
brings him to reverse the question to all of us. Okay, Mary was blessed and
Jesus was the Son of God; but about us, Jesus says that we are of an “evil
generation.” The word in the Greek can be said that we “are born to evil.” And,
we are always looking for some easy way out of our predicament. We are looking
for sign—as if we know that we are on the wrong path right now in this world
and all we need is an exit ramp back to God. But, that is too easy. Salvation
does not work that way. Jesussays the
only off-ramp sign we have is the same one that Jonah had. This is the sign of
Jonah.

Well, Jonah
was awakened to the voice of the Lord telling him to go to the heathen city of
Nineveh and preach to them the need for repentance. Instead, he goes down to
Joppa, gets on a ship, and heads off to Tarshish. God sends a storm to the
ship, and the sailors figure out that God is upset with Jonah and throw him
overboard. He is swallowed by a big fish. In the belly of the fish he cries out
to God that he now finds himself in hell. He REPENTS. He promises God that he
will do what he has been called to do. He will go to Nineveh, even though he
expects that he will be killed there. The fish then vomits him up on the beach,
and he starts the long trek to Nineveh. When he arrives, he is surprised that
even the King of Nineveh accepts the Word of God and sits in ashes wearing
sackcloth as a sign of sincere repentance.

All the
people of Nineveh are saved because Jonah finally does what is required by God
of him. Jonah repents. Nineveh repents. This is the essence of the sign of
Jonah. If we are not obeying God in our lives, but rather some lesser unclean
spirits, then we must repent.

Jesus notes
that if we do not repent, then even the people of Nineveh, who are now with God
in heaven after death, will rise up at the time of judgment. They will be
considered better than the rest of us who could not bring ourselves to repent
of our own wrongdoings.

What should
“repentance” actually mean? You will remember that I just said that we are looking
for the easy off-ramp to get us off the wrong path in life. That is not good
enough. We have to turn completely around and head back to God from whence we
came. Both in Hebrew and in Greek, repentance means a turning of the heart and
mind. We had made a decision to travel in directions that lead us away from
God.

When I
first got my driver’s license my sister and I decided to go out and have lunch
with my father one day. He worked in Pasadena, Ca. We lived in La Habra far to
the east in the Los Angeles area. We got out to see him and had lunch at
Pasadena cafeteria on Colorado Blvd. We saw his office and met some of his
coworkers. Then, we headed home on the freeways again. When we got on the 605
to 60 Freeway merge, we got into trouble. My sister and I both knew that we
needed to head east on the 60, but the signs only read “Pomona” or “Los
Angeles.”

My sister
cried out at the last moment to choose which lane to drive in “Go to
Pomona—wherever that is. We certainly do not want to go to LA!” As soon as that
decision was made, we knew that we were heading home. We could smell the dump
in Montebello that told us we were heading in the right direction.

Repentance
means making the hard choice and taking the right turn to get home to God
again.

I want you
to think about the fact that according to the Bible, Revelation 20, we will all
have the chance to be judged one day before the thrown of the Almighty. The
Book of Life will be opened. No more secrets or hidden agendas. It will all be
plain. That is when the people of Nineveh, who have already repented, will be
lifted up!

The
question is: “Why wait for that day with any uncertainty in your heart?” Why
should we live another moment not knowing what is going to take place in the
end time with our souls?! The life everlasting with Jesus does not have to
start at death; it starts right now when we repent and choose the path back to
God. When I get to heaven, I want to be right there singing praises to God as
we read in Revelation 7:11 “All the angels stood around the throne and around
the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before
the throne and worshiped God. “

The last
part of what was read from the pulpit is about letting that light shine over
our lives and shine out from us to others. I like to think of this as “radiant
repentance.”

When we
were talking about this in Bible Study, about letting our light shine out, we
started recounting stories about how we had seen in other people that light of
Christ shining out. It can be as if there is so much of the Holy Spirit in
someone that the body cannot hold it anymore. They are oozing out the light of
Christ.

Jesus talks
about the eye being the “lamp of the body.” That means he is not talking about
ambient light, photons, hitting the retinas. He is talking about the light
coming out of the eye to others who can see it. This is good for me—since I am
blind in one eye! I hope both eyes are radiating out the heart of repentance
and the light of Christ to others who can see it!

I have seen
it in others’ eyes. I am happy to say that as a man working for God’s church, I
see that light in so many eyes everyday. It is an incredible blessing. Ihope that all of you get to see that light
everyday in others too. Moreover, I want us all to be that light going out to
others.

Strangely
enough, this starts by pushing out the darkness that we do not want or need in
our lives. It means repenting before God, just saying to God that you will obey
and follow the light to the ends of the earth and to heaven above.